On Thursday, January 29th at 6:30pm, the Shelter Music Maine Trio (Marisa Solomon, Matt Consul, and Katherine Liccardo) will present a free ‘Music & Conversation’ program at the Jesup Memorial Library. Shelter Music Maine is committed to bringing classical chamber music concerts to sheltering environments throughout Maine. We believe all people, no matter their circumstances, deserve access to the therapeutic healing powers of classical music. The program will include works by Thomas Morley, Bach, Beethoven, Françaix and selections of Nordic folk music.
Violinist Katherine Liccardo, a native New Yorker, began her violin and piano studies at age 3. Katherine’s passion for music started at home, growing up in a household of music teachers and performers. At the age of 18, she made her Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium solo debut as the winner of the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. Katherine is a trained Suzuki teacher and runs an in person and online studio with students ranging from Maine to Australia. She is the associate director of Vigorous Tenderness, an immersive outdoor concert series that amplifies marginalized voices in classical music and democratizes new and experimental sounds.
Matt Consul holds a Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance and a Master’s in Contemporary Improvisation on mandolin and violin from New England Conservatory of Music. He is a member of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and serves as a substitute musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops. Matt regularly presents educational workshops for kids in Portland public elementary schools through the Portland Symphony’s Explorers program and helps bring chamber music to homeless shelters and other sheltering environments with Shelter Music Maine. Active in a variety of musical circles outside the classical world, Matt is a member of jazz composer/bandleader Miho Hazama’s Grammy-nominated ensemble m_unit and was formerly a member of the alt folk outfit the Laura Grill Band. In addition to performing, Matt maintains a small private studio teaching viola and violin.
Cellist Marisa Solomon received performance degrees from the Oberlin College and San Francisco Conservatories, studying with Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton respectively. She is the founder of Shelter Music Maine, director of the Kneisel Hall Program for Maine Students, adjunct faculty at the University of Maine, a member of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra and a 2023 recipient of the Director’s Award from the Collins Center for the Arts. Festivals include the Aspen Music Festival, New York String Seminar, Kneisel Hall, the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, SpoletoUSA, Festival de due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, and the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado.